Botanical Garden

Parks and gardens

Created as a practical project in 1766 by the Ecole Centrale du Département de la Manche, the area first began to be planted out as a garden in 1799. The first half of the XIXth century saw the introduction of camellias, China roses, hydrangeas, magnolias and the first rhododendrons being imported from Java to La Malmaison. The garden became the place where writers as talented as Guy de Maupassant, Victor Hugo or Paul Féval came for inspiration. It was towards the end of the XIXth century and early in the XXth that the garden really became a botanical garden, with mass plantings of shrubs and the creation of lawns and floral beds. Eventually, in May 1944, the site gained listed monument status. Today, the botanical gardens at Avranches offer the visitor a veritable treasury of the world’s plant heritage, with their superb mosaiculture beds and remarkable trees, including a giant sequoia, an Irish cephalotaxus (plum yew), a monkey puzzle tree, a gingko biloba and a Himalayan cedar. Another of the great treasures awaiting the visitor is the unique, spellbinding view of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel.